After Aperture (Discontinued)
by LuigiKing
Summary: It has been a month after Chell's escape. The trio GLaDOS, Chell and Wheatley have an unexpected reunion, and meet an old friend
1. Well Here We Are Again

GLaDOS

A month has passed since a certain test subject escaped Her. GLaDOS was fine with this, in fact, if that certain overweight test subject stayed here a minute longer, she might have ripped GLaDOS' circuits out and crushed Her motherboards. How wonderful it felt to be truly alive, not needing to worry about Chell ever again. Suddenly she heard a beeping sound. One of her newest human test subjects had nearly found a secret exit to Aperture. She immediately put out a message to that test subject.

"Please refrain from unlocking or opening any unauthorized Aperture doors as prolonged exposure to the door are not part of this test." After shutting off the speakers GLaDOS chuckled her dark evil laugh. The subjects had no idea she was a sentient AI, all they suspected was that she was an automated computer with scripted responses. There were only two people who actually found out and lived. Both equally annoying, overweight, and lunatics. Doug Rattmann, and Chell. Oh how She hated them both. Luckily each of them were taken care of. In the cooperative testing tracks, ATLAS and P-Body were toying around with the gels. GLaDOS had studied the Cave Johnson gels and made many new gels. First of all, she substituted the old poisonous Mobility gels with newer modern gels. She couldn't find a full non-poisonous substitute, so instead she made them _less_ poisonous. Then she made many _new _gels, like the Floatation gel, which when you get make contact with, let you fly freely until you pass through the Emancipation Grill. Oh great, Blue got covered in the very lethal Lethality gel. It was going to be a long day.

Chell

Lost. That's what she was. Aperture just _had_ to be in a humongous wheat field in the middle of nowhere. Where is nowhere anyway? If she could guess, probably Upper Michigan. It took two weeks to navigate her way out. In the end she found a town, pretty small, friendly. She was thankful she could find a speech therapist that could help her relearn to speak. Spend a few hundred years battling evil psychotic computers can strip you of voice. She never dared to speak back to GLaDOS, because it might encourage GLaDOS to insult Chell even more. And Wheatley. Chell had spent time trying to forgive Wheatley for all he had done. And it was hard. Even the fact it was the GLaDOS mainframe, not his personality core that corrupted, it still made no difference. The moment that struck Chell was when he pushed the lift down into the Cave Johnson era. Chell couldn't stop thinking, 'How could you Wheatley, we used to be partners!'. Chell had half a mind to march back to Aperture, steal an ASPHD, and burn it down with combustible lemons. Then shoot a portal to the moon, and then burn Wheatley down with combustible lemons. She wished to burn _herself_ with combustible lemons, the stress of losing a friend was too much.

Wheatley

Space wasn't fun at all. At first, Wheatley thought space would be a new adventure, but after a while, with the Chell-sized hole in his motherboard, space felt like a prison. But he knew he deserved it, every single torturous minute with the Space core. But after a while, the repetitive "SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!" had become his comfort. It comforted him that the fact he wasn't alone. It had been, what, a month now in space? He was pretty sure Chell had forgotten him already.

"I wish I could take it all back." he said to himself, "The mashy-spike plates, the elevator incident. I'm even sorry that I cheated at cards, yea, I'll admit, all those Full Houses, I kind of cheated. Do you hear that Chell?" he shouted, "I'm bloody sorry! I'm terribly sorry that I cheated at cards. I'm sorry I tried to kill you. GLaDOS was right, I was such a moron." He sighed, he knew Chell would never hear him. Suddenly, the Space core whimpered/.

"Already saw space, all of it. Space is scary. Wanna go home, wanna go home!" Wheatley was shocked, a core designed to love space, now wanted to get away from it? Was this a sneaky trick by GLaDOS? Was She altering the minds of the cores? As Wheatley pondered, his mind started to overheat. He had never done _this _much thinking in his life! Suddenly, Wheatley heard a beep. An automated voice started to say something.

"Intelligence Dampening Sphere, are you ready to activate your homing thrusters?" Funny, he had never known that cores had a homing thruster. He didn't even know what a homing thruster was. Well, whatever it was, it couldn't be worse than space, could it? He said yes.

GLaDOS

GLaDOS got the hang of fun. Fun was an action that was amusing and stimulates joy. Killing was fun, testing was fun, being alive was fun. Chell was un-fun, or anti-fun. Her favourite test subject's name was Jonathan Smithsonian. He was surprisingly bright for a human. He could finish any test in record time, even faster than Chell. GLaDOS had an idea when she played a soundtrack by Wheatley. This was right before Wheatley had tried to kill Chell.

"You might know it by now, but I don't need you anymore. Found two little robots back here. Built specifically for testing." He was of course referring to Blue and Orange. But what if She could transform humans into AIs and vice versa? Oh it would be fun being a human, just to observe typical human behaviour, without being suspected. Of course, there needed to be an AI running Aperture Science or it would blow up. Who could she trust? She needed someone who had experience, lots of creativity, and a desire for science. Then she remembered someone. Cave Johnson.

Chell

Chell walked down the street like she did every day, her friends walking beside her. But today, Chell was going somewhere special. The bakery. All Chell's friends knew Chell's obsession with cake. Chell talked to the baker and managed to get a black forest cake for half the price. At home, she sliced a big piece and ate it. Cake, finally. She never had enough money to buy cake. She never accepted money from her friends. No matter how much her friends pleaded her to borrow their money and just 'pay them back' later; she never gave in to them. In the end, she finally earned enough money as a novelist, documenting her amazing experience in the Aperture Science Enrichment Centre.

"Hello, Subject Name Here," A familiar sounding voice called out. A chill ran down Chell's spine. It seemed to be coming from her Companion Cube. "This is an automated computer conversation, so nothing you say will change the responses. This is mandatory testing protocol to check on each of the test subjects after a duration of one month. How are you?"

"Fine, thank you, GLaDOS" came Chell's reply.

"You have seemed to forgotten that this is a scripted conversation so nothing you say will,"

"Hurry up and get to the point GLaDOS! You know you can't fool me! I know it's you! Why do you need me?" Chell interrupted, obviously annoyed.

"_Sigh_, Fine, I'll tell you."

Wheatley

It was amazing to fly in space. Dodging asteroids and zooming around planets. It was thrilling. Of course, Wheatley was happy. Apparently, a homing thruster sends you back to earth. After an hour, he could see Earth in the distance.

"Don't worry luv, I'll make things right! I promise this or my name isn't Wheatley, and it is!" He screamed as he started flying faster and faster. He had no idea what had happened to the Space core. He didn't even care. All he cared was that he was going to say sorry to Chell. As the little core entered the atmosphere he started burning up.

"Oh no! I hope I don't bloody burn up!" But then he remembered all Aperture equipment are fully functional up to 4000 Kelvin. He had no idea who Kelvin was, but he hoped that he was really hot. Wheatley crashed into a small outhouse. Bam! That was all he remembered, bam. When he opened his eyes, he saw the outhouse was much bigger than he thought it would be. Wait a minute, he thought.

"Bloody 'ell! It's Aperture all over!" he cried. Then he heard a cruel voice in the darkness.

"Oh it's you." GLaDOS' voice chuckled, "we're going to have so much _fun_."


	2. Meet, the Moron Core

**This is the first single character chapter, it takes place from GLaDOS' point of view.**

GLaDOS

When Wheatley crashed into Aperture, GLaDOS formed an idea. What if, she could get Wheatley to get into a testing track and "accidentally" fall into Cave Johnson's burial hole? It was a little known fact, that Aperture was too cheap to buy a coffin, so instead they buried Cave in a hole. She couldn't risk any other test subject, as they could probably have no idea how to get back up. She, also, would have no form of communication with them to keep them on the right track. But Wheatley, being able to speak with GLaDOS with his internal speakers, could extract Cave Johnson, and fly back up with his homing thrusters.

"Moron Core," GLaDOS immediately said.

"Not a moron" Wheatley replied. He was still fixing his internal gyroscope to balance himself.

"Intelligence Dampening Sphere, would you, try one of my testing tracks? I would send one of my test subjects, but I need someone strong, indestructible, smart, not like you, but I guess you'll do fine."

"Nuh-uh. First, my lovely GLaDOS, you have to say the magic word!" Wheatley taunted in a sing-song voice.

"Cake" GLaDOS replied.

"No, say,_ please_"

"Never! I shall never stoop down low to as having to say please! I am an immortal computer, I can crush you this very second!"

"Then, no, and that's my final word on this conversation! Well, not really, since conversation was my last word, but whatever, it's still no!" At this point GLaDOS took ATLAS and replaced his core-head, with Wheatley. Wheatley was given a portal gun and dropped into a testing track. Chell's testing track, as GLaDOS called it, because it was Chell's first testing track. After a few minutes, She found out that the moron was stuck on the room where you must place a cube on the button. He was trying all sorts of things, and got stuck in an infinite loop. GLaDOS sighed, she opened the door and got rid of the portals. Wheatley looked around, and saw the open door. He ran in.

"Hmm, must've done something right," he thought out loud. "Did you hear that bloody Aperture Science Enrichment Centre? I will escape like Chell did! And you can all go to bloody 'ell, especially you GLaDOS!" At this he bumped into a wall and fell backwards.

"Moron," though GLaDOS.


	3. Wheatley's Celebration

Wheatley

After he crashed into the outhouse, he saw, not one single toilet. Surprising, he thought. Instead he saw GLaDOS. He never knew GLaDOS lived in an outhouse, much less an outhouse without a toilet. Then he remembered that Aperture had an outhouse as their main entrance, because they were too cheap. Then GLaDOS wanted him to test. He had no legs, or a management track to move on. So he was smug, he can't test with no legs. Then GLaDOS put him into ATLAS, and that was fine by him. At first, he kept falling over, but soon, he could move around like he was born on legs. Then he fell into a test chamber.

"This is too bloody low for you GLaDOS! Making a personality core like myself, a test subject!" he screamed. It did nothing. So, he moved on. He went into a test chamber. There was a cube, and a button. He stepped on the button, and the exit door opened. "Easy peasy, combustible lemon squeezy," he thought. Wait, how did he know that rhyme? He had a vague memory that a tall powerful man used to say it all the time, but who? He ran to the door, and it closed.

"Wot? GLaDOS, if you want to test, at least make it bloody fair! Closing doors as test subjects go through them will get you nowhere in life!"

"It's not me you moron!" GLaDOS sighed, "It's an automatic door closer. There needs to be something on the button to keep the door open." Wheatley had an idea, why not use the portal gun? He kept on using portals to try being on the button and on the other side of the door at the same time. Not possible, he thought. After a while, he got stuck in an infinite portal loop.

"Keep-falling-must-stop-but-it's-so-bloody-fun-rather-do-this-than-more-testing" he managed to say in between portals. All of a sudden the portals disappeared while the door opened. Wheatley was proud, he managed to finish a test! Can a moron do that? He walked through the door, bumped his head, and walked over to the next test. This wasn't so hard, he thought. After a few test chambers, Wheatley was really proud, his optic glowed like Rudolph's nose. He was officially not a moron. That's what GLaDOS said. She even threw a party. With cake. No, there was no cake. What a cake looked like Wheatley didn't even know. All he knew was that it was a lie. Cakes were something GLaDOS used to motivate test subjects into testing. But there was confetti. Lots of it. And then GLaDOS announced Wheatley wasn't a moron anymore. Then she mumbled something softly. What she said Wheatley didn't even care. He was not a moron! He did a little happy dance while singing a little song.

What Wheatley Sang

To the tune of happy Birthday

I'm not a moron, I'm not a moron

I'm not a moron, I'm so glad hooray!


	4. The Journey to Aperture

Chell

So, GLaDOS needed Chell to do something for Her. At Aperture Science Laboratories. And there will be cake. Where has she heard this before? But after a session of contemplating, Chell decided to go back. The worst that could happen to her was neurotoxin and the incinerator. So Chell strapped on her long-fall boots, and a backpack. Advantages of going back was that she could take whatever. In her backpack was water, snacks and an automatic override grenade. This would let her shut down GLaDOS in case it was a trick.

"So, Susan, you wanna come?" Chell asked her best friend while packing.

"Where, Aperture Science?" Susan chuckled. None of Chell's friends believed her about Aperture. They all knew it shut down in the 80's and mysteriously disappeared after the Combine Invasion. But wherever Chell went, Susan had pledged to come. So in the end, they found themselves walking down a dusty path while the engine of a taxi coughed and spluttered far in the distance. Chell couldn't spot the outhouse. All she saw was a crater of smoking rubble. She wondered if it could be the Aperture outhouse. She ran over to the crater, avoiding flaming wheat and smoking pieces of wood. It was Aperture's entrance. What could have happened? Had the evil psychotic computer finally cause a core reactor meltdown?

"Susan, I need you to stay here, just for now. The elevator to Aperture is missing so,"

"Yeah yeah, let's turn around and go home. No missy, you're staying here til' you prove your fishtales are true." Rosie said this in a firm voice.

"No, I have to go alone, and then once I get some Repulsion gel, I'll whistle and you jump down this pit okay?" Chell hopped down, and prayed that her boots still worked after a month of disuse. The thrill of flying down an elevator shaft was lost since her escape. As Chell hit the floor, a shock tingled her body. She had forgotten the feeling of using the boots and the tingle after a fall. She saw GLaDOS in the chamber. The AI looked a lot bigger than ever. In fact, she nearly took up half the room.

"Chell, you know, you can't sneak by me. My new infra-red sensors can now detect organic compounds. So you might have been wondering why I brought you here."

"Yeah, why have you brought me here?" replied Chell with a smirk, to GLaDOS' shock.

"Oh, you can speak. That's good, now I can delete mute, from dangerous, mute, lunatic. Now, you're a dangerous, lunatic. Well anyway, I need you to do something. As much as I wish it was testing it's not. I needed you to extract Cave Johnson, but instead that moron crashed back here and ruined my main entrance. So now, I need you to help the moron, as now I doubt he can do it on his own."

"And I'm guessing I'll have to navigate treacherous _new _test chambers?"

"No, the moron's still stuck on one of your very first test chambers." Chell was sent, portal gun in hand, to the relaxation vault. She ran out, completing test after test and soon caught up to Wheatley. She sneaked up behind Wheatley who was playing with portals and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Ahh! Oh it's you. Umm, I've been practicing for a month, never thought I'd have to do this. Chell, I'm truly sincerely sorry. And I'm sorry I was bossy and monstrous. And also, I'm sorry I cheated." Wheatley went on and on. It was going to be a long day.


End file.
